Description

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is both a remake of and a sequel to the roguelike action game The Binding of Isaac, also incorporating the expansion The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb. It was initially started as a project to rewrite the game from scratch, to deal with the constraints of the Flash technology that affected performance, but it was eventually expanded into a semi-sequel with additional content and co-developed by Nicalis. For the PS4 and PS Vita this is the first release of the game.

The game contains more than 450 items of which 160 are new. These provide new types of bullets, abilities, trinkets and familiars. There are also many new types of enemies and bosses. There are new environments and rooms, including new secrets rooms, new types of rocks and objects, mushrooms that hold pills, blue fires, new doors with additional requirements, a new final chapter, and the ability to upgrade shops by donating coins. In addition to the single screen rooms of the original game, there are now some larger rooms with more enemies and where the screen scrolls. Next to the existing three types of hearts that provide health, black hearts have been added. There is support for three save slots and there are new sound effects and music. The random environments are generated based on seeds. These can now be copied to replay afterwards and there are 100 seeds with a special effect. Players can also choose between two difficulty levels and continue a run at a later time. Next to the main runs there are 20 new challenge runs. The game retains its pixel based look, but adds a filter option to introducing smoothing.

The existing cast of playable characters is expanded with three new ones that can be unlocked: Azazel, Lazarus and Eden. All characters have specific statistics, but for Eden they are generated based on a number of variables and items for each run. To play with Eden a token needs to be spent. These tokens are earned by completing mom kills. The game supports cooperative local multiplayer for up to two players. At any time a second player can join at the cost of one heart to play as a familiar next to the main character.

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Trivia

Preorder incentive

Owners of the original title on Steam received a 33% discount if this game was preordered prior to the release on 4th November 2014.

Soundtrack

The distinct soundtrack for the original game was composed by Danny Baranowsky. For this remake/sequel however it was done by Mathias Bossi and Jon Evans. Although unconfirmed publicly, it is said the developer Edmund McMillen had a fallout with Baranowsky over the music for a different project and asked Bossi to do it instead. After the dispute Bossi was asked to do it for Rebirth as well.